Transparency in Government

TRANSPARENCY AND ACCESS

As Citizens, one of our greatest rights is to participate in government.  Truth about what our government officials—all employees at every level—are doing with our trust and our money is essential and is our right.  It is so essential that more than one law has been written to ensure open access to know what’s going on… but here in Charlotte, our City officials just don’t seem to get it. 

Repeated requests for CRVA (Charlotte Regional Visitor Authority) records went deferred and unanswered, put off by attorneys for weeks then months, and are still not fully answered.  There’s still not a straight answer to how much money is owed on the NASCAR Hall of Fame, or what the true operating losses on all CRVA venues amount to.  (See CRVA Losses Not the Same as Other Losses?)

It’s one thing to lose millions of dollars and not take responsibility to make changes, or to have terrible runoff and clear-cutting from developments that are approved for friends of council, or other such stories… but when it comes to the Police Department, things start getting even more serious.

PUBLIC RECORDS AND OVERSIGHT

Citynewswatch has received documentation, and published plenty of it already, documenting distressing practices conducted by Police Chief Rodney Monroe, approved by his boss City Manager Curt Walton, all with the full knowledge and approval of Mayor Foxx and all City Council Members, who are responsible for oversight and the hiring and firing of the rest.   City Attorneys who are informed continue (according to documents viewed) to allow the practice of denying public records requests. 

BACKGROUND CHECK

It seems all of these practices may have begun from the moment Chief Monroe was hired, or before.  Waters Consulting Company, Inc. was hired at a rate of $19,500 flat rate plus contracted amount not to exceed in expenses of $11,000 to perform an the executive search for a new police chief, and the contract includes numerous tasks, from formulation of qualities and needs, through advertising and search, to conducting a background investigation and report.  Some of those details are specified this way:

·       Conducting Background Investigations, Reference Checks and Academic Verifications  

·       Company will obtain a list of up to ten work-related references for each finalist

·       Company shall complete a formal background investigation of each final candidate.

·       Background investigation will include at a minimum: reference check, past and current employment verification, social security verification, education verification, Federal, State and Local criminal record check, Federal Courts search, Sex Offender registry check, motor vehicle and credit history check.

·       PHASE III – recommend finalists and final written report

This leads to questions about what exactly the company found in his background.  Did they perform the duties they were paid to do?  If so, what report was provided.

And if they did a thorough report which included the information we know now about Monroe, does that mean that Walton, Council (Foxx was on council at the time) and Mayor McCrory knew fully about the all-but-two courses at Phoenix on-line degree, even though a Masters degree was preferred?  Lower-rank officers are required to have a Bachelor’s degree.   What about the fact that his degree is not in Criminal Justice, even though he stated it was on his resume?   What about the Federal probe underway over allegations of misspending of about $350,000 on a million dollar grant in which he controlled the spending and then the records “disappeared.” (sound familiar?)   That investigation ended in a civil settlement since much of the evidence disappeared.  What else might be in that report?  Don't we have a right to know, considering how many other issues have been troubling.  Either the background check was not done properly or it was done and ignored.

There seems to be an issue of factual differences or at least questions between statements made and checking the facts.  With Mayor Foxx touting the confidence he has in Rodney Monroe to run the Security for DNC 2012 because of his experience spearheading the security for the Million Man March and handling two previous Presidential Inaugurations, you have to check some facts.  DC police have no confirmation of the experience claimed.  Rodney Monroe makes the statements in his recent “interview” with WSOC’s Erica Bryant here, but the only documents—and these are admittedly promotional pieces for Monroe—show that he was in charge of the Million Man March and the 1997 Presidential Inauguration…

A 2005 article in TheBrass Key when Monroe started in Richmond states as much.  Interesting that it also says “Richmond Police General Orders are not set in stone. They are constantly in a state of review and are routinely rewritten.  Simply put, the new chief can change the rules.”  Maybe old habits die hard.

Then there’s that pesky degree issue that some say isn’t important.  Well, it was a requirement for his job.  He is the only person (save one posthumous award) out of 15,000 in VCU history to be awarded a degree despite only taking two courses on the campus, rather than the required minimum 30 on-site credit hours out of the total required…  Then he admitted that he “accidentally” wrote on his resume submission that his degree—awarded if not earned—was in Criminal Justice, which it was not. 

It’s hard to understand how you would mix that up.  Both issues seem pretty fast and loose with rules for someone in charge of knowing and keeping all the laws of the state and municipality.  And, didn’t the background check reveal this detail?  It’s important to know or remember that the only reason this issue was discovered was through a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request made by a journalist as reported in Richmond’s Times Dispatch article How Freedom of Information Act Was Used in Monroe Case by Karin Kapsidelis who asked for payment records checking on educational reimbursements exceeding allowable amounts and charged to the department, according to reports.

Officers that work at much lower rank are required to have a Bachelor’s Degree and to be able to read and understand basic rules, as well as to be truthful.

WFAE’s LisaMiller, who also mentions fellow WFAE’s Julie Rose’s efforts to ask Monroe numerous times to ask Monroe about promises he made to continue his education here in Charlotte, in an effort to quell the questions and scandal surrounding his questionable degree.  He said he planned to take additional classes, but would never answer if he has started doing so.  It’s strange, then, at about the same time tearful press conferences about undergraduate degrees and decisions of whether to continue education were ongoing, Monroe gave an interview in Richmond with Scott Bass of Style Weekly magazine published January 2009:

Monroe says he felt like he became the scapegoat. He says he was in no rush to graduate that May, and if anyone at the university had “even uttered those words” that he needed more credits he would have simply taken more classes. After getting his bachelor's, Monroe notes, he began working on his graduate degree at VCU and has since earned an additional 18 credits.

“Again, I should have known. But when you have advisers at the university, why would I challenge them?” Monroe posits. “Everything got pushed back to me.”

It seems very unusual that he did not offer information about these 18 credits he offered to a reporter in Richmond at any emotional press conference in Charlotte, or to any of the numerous press inquiries since—especially when his degree from VCU (Virginia Commonwealth University, his stated alma mater) was a job requirement and has been such a source of contention.

This quote from Monroe referring to himself in third person is an interesting insight into his view of things:

“Come rain or shine or whatever,” he says, “anything I do will be done for Rodney Monroe and not to satisfy any one entity.”  

 

INTERNAL INVESTIGATIONS UNDER MONROE

Monroe won’t answer questions submitted in writing, blatantly ignoring multiple Public Records requests, as have been seen and documented here.  But this pattern was also observed very publicly during the case of now-former officer Marcus Jackson.   Monroe now takes responsibility for having at least a part in what happened--at least he did after the fact.   That means after at least six women, including a teenager, were sexually assaulted by the on-duty officer with prior restraining orders, domestic issues, and a history of lying on police reports which Monroe knew about.   There are documents in his Internal Affairs of more than one letter to Monroe of his bad prior acts.  Monroe and City Manager Walton, along with City Attorney Dewitt McCarley went to the carpet to keep Jackson’s full personnel file from being reviewed by City Council, and Council and the Mayor voted not to look at it.  

It just doesn’t match reality.    Again.

It causes one to wonder what else is going on internally.  It casts an unfair pall on all the men and women who are doing an excellent, difficult, and dangerous job because it causes a lack of trust where there should be no room for any.  When Curt Walton directly states that he will not investigate any concerns about what the Chief of Police is doing, personnel or otherwise, and continues to refuse public records requests as well, something needs to change.  Forewarning of a problem should be more than sufficient to take action to investigate concerns.

Despite this decided effort to pretend to be kept in the dark, Monroe recently extolled how open and forthcoming he is on this interview with Paul Brown, who spent a fair amount of time throwing softball questions and thanking him for the great job he was doing as Chief of Police.

During the Paul Brown exchange, starting at the 8:47 mark, referring to his officers, Monroe says:   

I’m always willing to listen to them…  I’m always willing to look to see what I can do to see what I can do to see what can make their jobs easier or more efficient in order to deliver the services that we’re supposed to deliver.

My office is not off limits.  I believe in sitting out in the lobby.  I believe in staying connected… and making sure I know what their needs and concerns are.

RAC SERGEANT EXAM FOR LIEUTENANT POSITION

This is not consistent whatsoever with what’s coming in from officers.  It’s not consistent with the kind of treatment outlined when you consider maybe a couple of hundred officers’ records disappearing and then threatened with loss of state certification.

This is not consistent with the use of “Rule of Five” authority which has been instituted for the first time in memory during the recent rounds of very unusual promotions, which Curt Walton and Human Resources has refused to review.  Now the RAC Sergeants who have taken tests to apply for the new Lieutenant position have been told the “Rule of Five” will be used on them as well.  CMPD Directives have not been written for this Lieutenant position—not that following Directives seems to matter in the least. 

Even more obvious is the bizarre imbalance in the testing for this round:  20% written and 80% oral.  In other words, the Chief and his close crew will use the “Rule of Five” provision to choose whomever they want to put in Lieutenant positions, leaving many RAC sergeants to be demoted, lose take-home cars (still looking for some of those cars…), and other pay and benefits and then report to the cronies of Monroe who are promoted.  Can you imagine anything worse for morale or management of a Police Department?  Is there any more unfair way to choose people to promote? 

MORE ABOUT INTERNAL AFFAIRS AND CLAIMS OF OPENNESS

When Brown asks about dealing with controversial issues, he talks about Marcus Jackson without naming him.  Judge for yourself if you find the answer to be consistent with actions:

Be honest about the issue.  Listen to people.  I’m not going to run and hide from any issue.  Good or bad.  Even when we had, you know, an officer out here violating women and so forth, we weren’t going to hide that issue.  We weren’t going to cover that issue up.  We were going to bring that issue to the forefront.  We were going to lead the charge in identifying victims, identifying exactly what this officer’s conduct was and with that I think it just allowed us to deal with, as painful and hurtful as it may have been, but it allowed us to move past it and to keep moving on.  To not talk about it and not be open and honest about it I think would have haunted us for years to come.  And it still may but I feel good that we were open and honest about it and that’s how we’re going to look at any situation dealing with our members or anybody else and think that’s what the public expects.

We’re not gonna close ranks.  We’re not gonna put up that thin blue line. We’re a part of the community.  So with that we want the community to have an opportunity, you know, to see what we’re doing and how we’re doing it.  You know giving access to people to see what we’re doing and experience some of the things that we’re doing I think those are good things.  I think people develop greater confidence when they understand what you’re doing and how you’re doing it vs. putting up a mask and saying you can‘t talk about we can’t tell you about this, I don’t necessarily agree with that.

More to come.

BONUS

Here is the posting with full job requirements at the time Rodney Monroe applied for the job. 

 Police Chief

Charlotte – Mecklenburg Police Department

Charlotte, North Carolina

The Charlotte – Mecklenburg Police Department (2000 employees, 1627 sworn, $182M budget) is seeking a Chief of Police. Experience in: leadership and management of police organizations; fostering constructive strategic and operational innovation; fostering police-community trust; working with diverse communities, neighborhood organizations, and police employees; developing and using technological advances; budget preparation; developing employment – management collaboration; ability to collaborate with public agencies as member of the City Manager’s Executive Team. Applicants need public-service values, strong communication and “people” skills. Requires bachelor’s degree (master’s preferred) in public/business admin/law enforcement/criminal justice/related field; 5 years as a senior administrator in large departments. City residency within 6 months. Salary commensurate with experience.

Final Candidates may be introduced publicly!

If interested, visit our website for more details at: http:// .charmeck.org .You may also submit resumes to: Waters Consulting, attention Mr. Chuck Rohre at: crohre@watersconsulting.com or fax to 972-481-1951.

CMPD’s Fingerprints Are All Over This

A month-and-a-half since CedarPosts.blogspot.com broke the story of the missing Law Enforcement records at the Training Academy, and continuous public records requests refused by every level of CMPD and the City of Charlotte officials, one more piece of information is out:

Here is half of the memo demanding that some of the officers must go get their fingerprints re-submitted, or risk their certifications as law enforcement officers, as suggested in the last post on this topic by citynewswatch here. 

(click on the memo below to enlarge)

 As you can read, CMPD lost or destroyed (to be determined) records of it's own Law Enforcement Officers, then sent this memo threatening that if they did not submit new documentation of their fingerprints, it could result in loss of their State Certification as LEO's.   What is the excuse for this kind of mismanagement?  How many other records are gone?  What repercussions have taken place, other than for the officers whose records are gone?  What investigation is underway to discover the source of the missing records?

Here is the full memo referenced in the earlier post:

(click on the memo below to enlarge)

Is this the group you want in charge of security for DNC 2012?

Here is the most recent request for information that they are still refusing to answer:

-----Original Message-----
From: (name withheld)
To: mshah-khan <mshah-khan@ci.charlotte.nc.us>
Cc: bcunningham <bcunningham@cmpd.org>; rtufano <rtufano@cmpd.org>; rmonroe <rmonroe@cmpd.org>; rfey <rfey@cmpd.org>; kmcmillan <kmcmillan@ci.charlotte.nc.us>; afoxx <afoxx@ci.charlotte.nc.us>; cwalton <cwalton@ci.charlotte.nc.us>; DMcCarley <DMcCarley@ci.charlotte.nc.us>; rhagemann <rhagemann@ci.charlotte.nc.us>; mnewbold <mnewbold@cmpd.org>; jemken <jemken@cmpd.org>; councilmancannon <councilmancannon@gmail.com>; barnesdistrict4 <barnesdistrict4@aol.com>; jasonburgess <jasonburgess@ci.charlotte.nc.us>; n3157w <n3157w@yahoo.com>; warren <warren@warrencooksey.com>; adulin1 <adulin1@carolina.rr.com>; info <info@davidhowardclt.com>; jamesdistrict2 <jamesdistrict2@aol.com>; pkinsey <pkinsey@carolina.rr.com>; epeacock <epeacock@ci.charlotte.nc.us>; district3_turner <district3_turner@yahoo.com>; citynewswatch <citynewswatch@gmail.com>
Sent: Tue, Oct 18, 2011 9:16 pm
Subject: Re: PUBLIC INFORMATION REQUEST RE:State investigation/audit of CMPD

Dear City of Charlotte Officials,

I have found that a Department of Justice investigation and/or audit is either underway or completed referencing the below matter of officers' records missing from the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department. It has been brought to my attention that hundreds of current officers were forced to provide new fingerprint cards to put on record for the CMPD due to loss of original records. Please confirm this information. Also, how many fingerprint cards have been lost for now-former officers, and what determination has been made in handling their records which have been lost? Have they or will they be required or asked to supply fingerprints again? What would be the implications regarding any past or open crimes and comparison to fingerprints or other medical records? Are DNA samples an issue in the lost records?

I continue to wait for fulfillment of all public information requested herein and below and fully expect my public officials to comply with these requests, per public records law.

Thank you.

While you can see that many questions remain unanswered, continuing to ask in a public way is the best resource we have, and will eventually bring answers to all the outstanding questions.  Thank you to all those who are helping the cause.

Comp Stat, Investigations, Crime Reporting (Part 6)

MORE ON THE COMP STAT STORY OUT OF NY & NC

This is a continuation of the previous post by citynewswatch, but part 6 of a series about reporting of Crime Statistics by the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department and politicians here in the City of Charlotte who will not relent and take on their oversight responsibilities to investigate numbers that don’t add up.

Please read the last post, which was largely about how one brave NYPD officer, Adrian Schoolcraft tried to speak to his precinct commanders, then Internal Affairs, about disturbing orders to refuse to take criminal complaints, to downgrade severity of crimes in order to make crime appear lower, and also to arrest or at least detain people for no crime at all, just to harass them.  NYPD is the originator of the Comp Stat system which is used here in Charlotte—a computerized crime tracking and reporting system.

After he spoke freely to the NYPD, without representation, and gave evidence of the wrongdoing going on, he says he experienced retaliation on the job.  He has a recorded and undisputed account of his precincts’ Deputy Chief and more than a dozen others forcibly coming into his apartment as he was resting, informing him that he was going to be declared mentally ill, strip searching him, then taking him away without cause for six days without access to the outside world.  Even though he has moved 350 miles away, NYPD officers still come pounding on his door.

MORE OFFICERS COMING FORWARD

But more officers are coming forward in support now.  After Schoolcraft turned to the Village Voice, who reported extensively on his ordeal and on the impact of misreporting the crime statistics, other officers started to come forward and the pressure on command was enough to force investigations.  Those who contact the press can remain anonymous, and they won’t have the fear of retribution from the commanders causing corrupt practices in the first place.

The post also contains one very specific other tragic outcome from the misreporting of crime:  a series of attacks by a rapist that went undetected until at least the seventh attack because the pattern was not established in the reports.

CHARLOTTE’S CONFLICTING CRIME STAT STORIES

Continuing from these thoughts, and re-focusing on Charlotte which also uses the Comp Stat program, it’t confounding to see a series of reports from local media outlets, based on what the CMPD and the Attorney General release to them, which are seemingly at odds on the same day in the Charlotte Observer:  Jun. 29, 2011

Statewide crime rate at lowest level in 33 years

The overall crime rate dropped 5.6 in 2010, while violent crime was down 10.2 percent compared to the previous year, state Attorney General Roy Cooper said today.

Cooper announced the annual tally at a press conference at the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department.

Statewide, murders fell 7.3 percent, while rapes dropped 14.3 percent and robberies were down 19.4 percent. There were 468 murders in the state last year, 5.1 per 100,000 residents.

All categories of property crime also fell, led by motor vehicle thefts, which were down 12.5 percent.

Note that all crime statistics in the state have fallen.  This is not exclusive to Charlotte.  These statistics are being reported by other local agencies up to the State, who in turn is reporting them as given.  Whether their reporting standards and numbers are equally murky as Charlotte’s is unknown.

Earlier in the year, January 7^th, 2011, Cleve Wootsen, Jr. wrote for the Charlotte Observer as well “Police: Crime Stats Accurate.” 

Local police are thoroughly trained in how to accurately classify and record crime, says Deputy Chief Kerr Putney. Supervisors review officers' initial crime reports to help ensure accuracy, and the department conducts periodic audits.

"You've got to trust your people...," says Putney. "We don't have a lot of instances where people are misclassifying or falsifying or underreporting crime."   The FBI recently reviewed a small sample of CMPD crime reports and made only minor suggestions to improve uniformity of reporting.

No error numbers out of that small sample set were given in the report.

On exactly the same day is another Charlotte Observer report by Franco Ordonez and Cleve Wootsen, Jr. that Charlotte has become a major hub for black tar heroin use.  Major Glenn Neimeyer and other publications declared Charlotte to be in the top five cities in the U.S. for black tar heroin use.

   So, while congratulations are in order on this big “bust” the content of the article clearly states that the problem of black tar heroin in Charlotte is large and growing.  So how does that square up with the shrinking Crime Statistics and happy faces put out by the CMPD, Curt Walton, Mayor Foxx, and the City Council?  It doesn’t.  If you ask the hospitals and treatment centers, as these authors did, they tell you about the real problem.  The addicts are getting their drugs from the dealers described, who are running drug cartels, and they’re not using fake guns and non-criminals to buy, transport, and sell them in our neighborhoods.  Each of those events are crimes, usually gang-driven.

Alarm sounded over black tar heroin use in Charlotte

"It's as serious as the beginning of the crack cocaine epidemic," said UNC Charlotte criminal justice professor Paul Friday. "And the reason it is serious is because it can expand so quickly."

Friday spoke to the Charlotte City Council on Monday, warning about increasing use of the highly addictive drug that seems particularly prevalent in affluent areas and among young people. He was joined by Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police, who told council members that suppliers are Mexican-based cartels that operate as efficiently as a business.

"We take a cell off the street and oftentimes, they'll make another cell in the next five days because they're at the bottoms of the distribution chain," Maj. Glen Neimeyer said at a Tuesday press conference.

Ten years ago, doctors at CMC-Mercy rarely saw a patient addicted to black tar heroin in its detoxification program. Now 40 percent of their patients are being treated for abuse of black tar heroin and related prescription drug abuse, said Robert Martin, the hospital's director of the substance abuse services.

The article details one arrest of a man named Gonzalez, typical of black tar heroin dealers, but not necessarily reflected in our crime stats (the article notes CMPD did not release statistics at a press conference on the topic):

According to the U.S. Attorney in Charlotte, Gonzalez was arrested in possession of more than $50,000 in cash, hundreds of balloons used to package heroin, and two firearms.

FBI RELEASED NATIONAL GANG DATA

The story for Charlotte wasn’t good as FBI released gang data this week for the whole country, attributing about 50% of crime to gang related activity.  There will be more on this topic coming up.

LOOKING FOR OTHER DATA

When New York journalists for the Village Voice investigated information from hospitals, as compared to the pleasant picture painted by the crime statistics released by NYPD, what they found didn’t add up, either.  In October, 2005, Paul Moses wrote “These Stats Are a Crime: While Bloomberg boasts of crime drop, the hospitals' work on assault victims is booming”

The article outlines a huge political campaign by Mayor Michael Bloomberg announcing "the neighborhoods of New York have become safer than ever."  Meanwhile, from the time of the article, authors found:

The number of people who went to New York City hospitals because they were assaulted jumped sharply in four of the last five years for which figures are available—a direct contrast to the plunging number of assaults the NYPD reported.

But the stark contrast between these two sets of official statistics demonstrates again the need for a thorough, independent probe of the police department's crime reports.  And it shows how wrong it was for the Bloomberg administration to have allowed the NYPD to thwart a probe earlier this year (2005) of the crime statistics.

According to health statistics on the city government's website, more and more assault victims flocked to emergency rooms for four years in a row. In 2002, the last year for which data is available and Bloomberg's first year in office, the number of assault victims either hospitalized or treated in emergency rooms shot up 6 percent from the year before.

The police department reported a 10 percent drop in aggravated assaults, according to FBI records.

Even the ‘Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association President Patrick Lynch had said that officers "are forced to falsify stats in order to maintain the appearance of a drastic reduction in crime," the Daily News reported.   And Sergeants Benevolent Association president Ed Mullins said his sergeants had witnessed assaults being downgraded to harassment cases.   In the face of even the Policemen’s associations’ public statements that the numbers and reports were falsified, they had set up a Commission to Combat Police Corruption comprised of mayoral appointees.

But the NYPD would not cooperate and Mayor Bloomberg didn’t do his duty to assist the chairman or enforce subpoena power, causing Chairman Pomerantz to resign with no support from those who appointed the committee, which now seemed to be a total sham.  All of this happened before Officer Schoolcraft’s ordeal or the sexual attacks of the women explored in the last post.

The article goes on to say:

It must be said that the police department has made sure its own relevant numbers remain secret. The department has stonewalled Freedom of Information Law requests for its data and, as Pomerantz testified in April, refused to hand over information even to a mayoral commission responsible for policing the police.

When the commission sought records, police officials responded that alleged falsifying of crime statistics is outside the corruption commission's jurisdiction because it is not a form of corruption.

But the police department's critics in the unions had alleged a blatant fraud—one involving government records used to make vital decisions about public safety.

That's a corruption allegation.

In the early years of the police department's Comp Stat program—in which the police brass comes down hard on any precinct commander whose crime numbers fail to fall—both hospitalizations for assaults and the police tally for assaults fell sharply.

But then that started to change. Police continued to record a downward trend in serious assaults, but in recent years, hospitalizations for assaults leveled off and emergency room visits increased sharply. Also, the number of "simple assaults"—lesser offenses not included in the FBI's index of serious crimes—dropped sharply at first, but, with some ups and downs, leveled off.

1995 was a banner year for reducing assaults: Police tallied a 14 percent drop in aggravated assaults and the health department would later report that the number of people hospitalized for assault fell 15 percent.

That didn't continue. The patterns are consistent with what the police unions have charged: The impressive crime reductions through the middle 1990s were real, but afterward, a "fudge factor" began to emerge because police commanders felt pressured to manipulate crime reports for the seven "index" crimes reported to the FBI.

As the Voice reported in March, a PBA official explained it this way in the organization's magazine:

"You eventually hit a wall where you can't push [crime] down any more. . .  So how do you fake a crime decrease? It's pretty simple.

Don't file reports, misclassify crimes from felonies to misdemeanors, undervalue the property lost to crime so it's not a felony, and report a series of crimes as a single event. A particularly insidious way to fudge the numbers is to make it difficult or impossible for people to report crimes—in other words, make the victims feel like criminals so they walk away just to spare themselves further pain and suffering"

It doesn't mean that the drops in every category of crime are questionable. It doesn't mean that the city is radically more dangerous than thought. But it could mean that the more recent crime drops are not as great as the public has been led to believe. Reports for some offenses, such as grand larceny or assault, are more easily manipulated than others. Assaults can be taken off the books by downgrading them from felonies to misdemeanors, or recording them under another charge, such as harassment.

Once again: If the NYPD wants to show the continuing drop in major crimes is real, it can start by releasing the mass of crime complaint data on its computers for all charges, precinct by precinct, annually since at least 1993—and not just the "index" crimes. That would show whether there is a pattern of downgrading complaints to lower the numbers for the seven major index crimes. It can release the audits police officials say are done twice a year in all precincts, instead of withholding them, as the department does now. It can disclose whatever data it has for the categories that might allow a reported crime to be turned into something else—lost property, say. And it can grant access to the records that officers submit in their precincts when a crime is reported.

ALLEGATIONS OF CAREER ABUSE

Aside from the terrible case of Officer Schoolcraft, abuse of citizens and the public trust, there are allegations that the Comp Stat system itself can be used as a tool to target individual officers, often mid-level managers and supervisors.  Academics who have devoted years of study and work in the area particularly to Comp Stat and Criminal Justice have surveyed, interviewed, and quoted hundreds of NYPD commanders about the drawbacks of the actual model.  Some quotations are from retired commanders and some from active duty.

Professor John Eterno , researcher, Chairman of the Department of Criminal Justice at Molloy College and a retired NYPD Captain.  Eli Silverman is Professor Emeritus at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

Eterno and Silverman continue with their critique of the Comp Stat model with quotes from actual NYPD commanders about the drawbacks of the model.

Expanding on data from a survey of high-ranking supervisors in an article in the journal Professional Issues in Criminal Justice, Eterno and Silverman now include quotations from those anonymous bosses about the drawbacks of Comp Stat.

Keep in mind that these are NYPD captains, deputy inspectors, inspectors and chiefs-- men and woman trusted to run precincts and borough commands, detective squads and narcotics units. Some of them are retired. Some are still on active duty.

Other supervisors described Comp Stat meeting as "abusive."

Another retired supervisors alleges that Comp Stat was a good tool that was used for personal vendettas by some commanders.

"Comp Stat," another writes, "was a tool of 1PP to elevate/end careers at will."

And there's bias as well, he adds. "Often the managers during the Comp Stat process are treated very differently depending on who has been 'chosen' to advance at a rapid rate."

Read the full article from 10/10/2010 by Graham Rayman of the Village Voice titled “The NYPD Tapes:  NYPD Commanders Critique Comp Stat and the Reviews Aren’t Good”

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See what’s happening and compare to what Chicago’s new Mayor Rahm Emmanuel has recently instituted at http://data.cityofchicago.org/  It's a very good start toward openness in government, in matters from crime to building permits to government services and contacts, jobs and employees.  Transportation is covered… all the data is there.  Some of it is still raw and less user-friendly, but at least it’s available to search and study, download and process by academics and investigative agencies.  That’s transparency in a city that’s been screaming out for it. 

Here, there is nothing but silence from any City Council Member, from Mayor Foxx, from City Manager Walton, From Chief Monroe, or anyone else “in charge.” 

Please write to those people listed above and demand the information we are entitled to, not just once, but systemically.  We have paid for the systems and the personnel to make it happen.  Instead, the lawyers we pay for are blocking the release of the data to cover whatever is going on in a number of areas.  That's not acceptable for our public data.

Please ask for accountability for the personnel and financial decisions made by Monroe as well.  Please let citynewswatch know how it’s going.  All main contacts are listed here on the site, to your right.

And continue contacting citynewswatch directly--anonymity is key.

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Here are links to the first five Crime Reporting posts by citynewswatch:

CrimeReporting Questions and Jealous Reporters (Part 1)

Significant Events in Crime Reporting(Part 2)

CMPD Says Web Site "UnderConstruction" (Part 3)

Prostitution Sting in Charlotte, Crime Reporting (Part 4)

Why Every Citizen Should Care About Correct Crime Statistics (Part 5)

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Why Every Citizen Should Care About Correct Crime Statistics (Part 5)

Citynewswatch blogs have been focused heavily on the activities of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department, partly because of response, and partly because of continuing discoveries about practices in the CMPD and the seeming complete lack of concern or oversight by the City Manager, and those who hire the whole lot—the City Council and the Mayor.  Unfortunately, some are running unopposed…

Many citizens and officers are emailing confidentially with areas of concern, specific information, and other general issues.

One of the largest areas of focus is the lack of transparency of the real crime data since Chief Rodney Monroe came to town, his refusal to answer questions about the numbers that don’t add up at all, and denial after denial of public records requests from the City and the CMPD, no matter the conflict of Public Records Law. 

If you think it’s not an issue that might matter to you, the first story might illustrate again why it’s a problem if crime statistics are not correct.  It is actually information excerpted from the third in a series from the Village Voice in NY, NY written when an officer who tried to correct alleged (and documented) corruption in his own police department was hauled off to a mental hospital by more than a dozen police officers who came in to his apartment without permission or cause. 

The story and tapes of how his Deputy Chief personally arrived among the officers to strip search and say he would be treated as mentally ill if he didn’t cooperate after making an internal complaint follows, but first read some of the consequences of “merely” downgrading or misreporting some crimes, which he was trying to correct:

In what you must hope is one of the most disturbing other outcomes from this downgrading of crimes, the Village Voice illustrates in this article (click to link to full article):

NYPD Tapes 3: A Detective Comes Forward About Downgraded Sexual Assaults

When even attempted rapes are being downgraded to misdemeanors, is the public safe?

By Graham Rayman  published: June 08, 2010

… None is more alarming than the story being made public by retired NYPD Detective First Grade Harold Hernandez.

Responding to the ongoing Voice series "NYPD Tapes," Hernandez reveals publicly for the first time that the downgrading of crimes to manipulate statistics allowed a man to commit six sexual assaults in a Washington Heights neighborhood in 2002 before he was finally caught after his seventh attack.

The initial six crimes, committed over a two-month period, went unnoticed by 33rd Precinct detectives, Hernandez says, because patrol supervisors had improperly labeled most of them as misdemeanors. It was only through a lucky break—an alert neighbor spotted the suspect pushing his seventh victim into her apartment—that the rapist, Daryl Thomas, was finally captured.

After his arrest, Hernandez persuaded Thomas to detail his earlier crimes. The detective then combed through stacks of crime complaint reports to identify the pattern of violence.

Hernandez learned that most of the victims' complaints in the prior assaults had been classified as criminal trespassing, so the incidents never reached the detective squad and, in turn, were never declared a pattern, which would have triggered an intense campaign to capture the perpetrator.

No police official was ever disciplined for misclassifying the complaints. Not only did Police Commissioner Ray Kelly allow the precinct commander, then Captain Jason Wilcox, to stay on, but he promoted him twice: Wilcox is now an Inspector and the commanding officer of the Manhattan Transit Bureau.

This is the same Commissioner Ray Kelly that claims to be interested in investigating the problem of misreporting crimes, but has been fighting it for years.

One of Thomas's victims, Jennifer Krupa, was stunned when the Voice told her what happened to the earlier complaints. She was attacked toward the end of the two-month period. "If there was a chance they could have caught him earlier, that is absolutely infuriating," says Krupa, a musician who now lives out of state and willingly allowed her name to be used.

Thomas's attack on her resulted in a brutal battle. Shortly after 2 a.m., he accosted her as she was entering her apartment. He grabbed her and put a knife to her throat. She screamed and struggled, and they both fell. He snatched her purse and ran, but she chased him down and grabbed the purse. He punched her in the face, but she held on to her purse, and he fled. Krupa wound up with a bruised face and a small cut on her throat.

She knew it could have been worse: "He was trying to get me into my apartment," she says. "This turned my life upside down for more than a year. I had panic attacks. I didn't sleep. There were days I couldn't leave my apartment."

Over time, the trauma faded, but she says, "Anytime I'm in a corner or in an elevator, I'm very aware of what's going on around me."

Hernandez found out sometime later that a detective sergeant in the squad had noticed the similarity of the incidents, but when he brought it to the attention of the squad commander and the precinct commander, he was rebuffed.

"He told them, 'You have a predator out there,' and they said, 'Keep your mouth shut,' " Hernandez says. "He told them, 'You keep on believing that, it's going to blow up in your face. And it would get ugly if people found out about it.' They didn't listen."

The detective lays the responsibility for the downgrading at the feet of the precinct commander, then Captain Jason Wilcox, and his crime analysis sergeant. 

"He was able to dance his way out of the situation," Hernandez says. "The upper echelon praised my work. Everybody overlooked the fact that they allowed this predator to remain on the loose."

"Once this thing blew up, the job made sure the press did not find out about this case," Hernandez says. "It was very high-profile within the department because they thought the women were going to run to the press."

No one was ever disciplined for misclassifying the attacks, he says. The case never made the newspapers or the electronic media.

Since the "NYPD Tapes" series began on May 5, the Voice has heard from more than a dozen current and retired police officers of various ranks who offered their own stories and expressed concern about the downgrading of complaints, the quota system, and how the statistical demand for stop-and-frisks was leading to potential civil rights violations.

This newspaper article outlines the events that occurred when NYPD Officer Adrian Schoolcraft tried to speak truth to power, talking to chain of command about troubling orders given to downgrade the number of serious crimes reported.  Officers simultaneously performed other duties to appear busy and in many cases wrote up completely false ‘small’ charges or just hauled people in to the precinct for 24-hour holds with no probable cause of having committed a crime, violating their civil rights.  Recordings made by this officer over a 1 ½ year period include such orders given along with specific quotas and threats of retaliation and firings for officers who wouldn’t take on these false reports or who wouldn’t turn away victims.

Schoolcraft turned to the Village Voice (www.villagevoice.com) who did a multi-part investigative series on his ordeal, causing other officers to come forward with supportive documentation and corroborating information, as well as more citizens that spoke up.  He also spoke on NPR which just re-aired, and was a result of the Village Voice series.

As Schoolcraft spoke on the NPR show “This American Life” originally aired 9.10.2010, he said this about his intentions in reporting the trouble in his precinct: 

“I figured someone would approach these supervisors and say ‘listen, you got caught. Knock it off.  Everything’s in house still. ‘Just knock it off.’  This is getting out of control.  I never saw myself as an adversary.”  

It seems from their actions that the brass in his precinct saw him differently than he saw himself when they realized the information could get out.  

After taking the information through proper channels and being treated like this, he went to the members of the press who were willing to write about the truth.

You can listen to the full recording (edited version is on the radio show) of the home invasion at this site as more than a dozen officers, including the Deputy Chief Michael Marino forced their way in to his apartment on October 31^st, 2009 where he had been sleeping with Nyquil.  His father had called to warn him of the brigade outside his home, so he recorded the whole thing with two recorders.  One on his person was discovered as they tackled him to the floor and then strip searched him after he calmly said he did not want to go anywhere, as he had been resting and not feeling well.  The other was hidden in his bookshelf and recorded the other police announced he would be treated like a mental case for not complying with them.  

According to his undisputed reports Officer Schoolcraft was cuffed and taken to a mental hospital where a doctor said he was not experiencing any mental problems, that his transport there was ridiculous, and that he should be released immediately.  He was kept with no further diagnosis for three more days, at which point a doctor said he was reacting normally to being held against his will without cause in a mental hospital.  He was held for three additional days…   all because he reported wrong actions of his police department to his superior officers and then to Internal Affairs. 

Schoolcraft eventually moved 350 miles out in to the country to live with his father, where NYPD officers have come a dozen times, pounding on the door (recorded) to demand further contact with him.  Would you answer the door?

MORE OFFICERS ARE COMING FORWARD

More officers are coming forward, on record and as anonymous sources to press.  After years of fighting every attempt to review records, New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said he was “forming a committee to look at how the department records crimes amid allegations that higher-level offenses were being downgraded,” according to a report from ABC’s Channel 7 in NY on January 05, 2011.   Kelly told everyone the committee results would be complete in exactly six months.  Nine months later, nothing has been released.

Veteran Police reporter Len Levitt of the Huffington Post included this in his post on August 23, 2010:

Kelly has been successful in blocking outside agencies from investigating these allegations, which first surfaced in 2005 when the patrolmen's and sergeant's unions stated publicly that the practice of downgrading crimes was city-wide.

Kelly refused to turn over documents requested by Mark Pomerantz, chairman of the Mayor's Commission to Combat Police Corruption, which lacks subpoena power. Bloomberg supported Kelly by remaining silent, prompting Pomerantz to resign.

Since then, not one of the city's district attorneys has had the guts to begin an investigation into the union claims.

After Schoolcraft made his initial allegations about the 81st precinct, Larry Schoolcraft wrote to Pomerantz, now in private practice. Pomerantz wrote back: "I would refer you to the Commission to Combat Police Corruption, but in candor I do not think they have the ability to do anything for you."

There are documented allegations of patrol officers refusing to take complaints, making determinations on their own that they did not believe someone’s report of burglary, for example, refusing a complaint if someone could not come in to the precinct at that time for some reason—whether for child care or work or any reason.  There is no directive that allows officers to refuse to take a complaint.

Schoolcraft decided to give the tapes to the Voice out of frustration that his attempts to report questionable activities went largely ignored within the NYPD. Instead of the department acting on his complaints, he says, he was subjected to retaliation by precinct and borough superiors.

This was one of the earliest in an in-depth series of articles done by the Village Voice covering what turned out to be an investigation by Officer Adrian Schoolcraft of the NYPD between June 1, 2008 and October 31, 2009.  He tried to talk to his chain of command about some troubling issues of arrest without cause, downgrading of crimes, non-reporting of crimes, and other problems in his precinct.  The results must be examined and dealt with. 

As “Voice” reporter Graham Raymon says, Officer Schoolcraft began carrying a recorder with him which recorded many aspects of “cop” life, but particularly bosses threatening street cops to manipulate the crime statistics in many ways, not to take certain robbery and other “Type 1” (more serious FBI reporting statistic) reports, calling victims to intimidate them out of pressing charges, and increasing and in some cases making up smaller charges against anyone in their way.

See the entire article TheNYPD Tapes: Inside Bed-Stuy's 81st Precinct By Graham Rayman    published: May 04, 2010, as Schoolcraft explains

The tapes show, the rank-and-file NYPD street cop experiences enormous pressure in a strange catch-22: He or she is expected to maintain high "activity"—including stop-and-frisks—but, paradoxically, to record fewer actual crimes.

Schoolcraft tells the Voice he carried the audio recorder initially to protect himself from the civilian complaints that can result from street encounters. But then he began to document things happening in the precinct that bothered him. After he ran afoul of precinct politics, he recorded what he viewed as retaliation by his bosses.

"How else would you present the fraud being committed on the public?" he asks.

Al O’Leary, spokesman for the Patrolman’s Benevolent Association is quoted:

While the NYPD can set "productivity targets," the department cannot tie those targets to disciplinary action: "What turns it into an illegal quota is when there is a punishment attached to not achieving, like a transfer or loss of assignment."

Another section turns to downgrading crimes and refusing to take reports:

During a September 12, 2009, roll call, a fellow cop tells Schoolcraft: "A lot of 61s—if it's a robbery, they'll make it a petty larceny. I saw a 61, at T/P/O [time and place of occurrence], a civilian punched in the face, menaced with a gun, and his wallet was removed, and they wrote 'lost property.' "

The practice of downgrading crimes has been the NYPD's scandal-in-waiting for years. The NYPD claims that downgrading happens only rarely, but in the course of reporting this story, the Voice was told anecdotally of burglaries rejected if the victim didn't have receipts for the items stolen; of felony thefts turned into misdemeanor thefts by lowballing the value of the property; of robberies turned into assaults; of assaults turned into harassments.

Schoolcraft volunteered his testimony and evidence, without representation

THE NYPD HAS A UNIT THAT audits precinct crime stats, known as the Quality Assurance Division (QAD). The unit operates something like Internal Affairs, but is actually attached to the management and planning office.

On October 7, Schoolcraft was ordered downtown by QAD for a nearly-three-hour formal, on-the-record interview with an inspector, a lieutenant, and three sergeants.

Schoolcraft was advised that he could have an attorney represent him in the meeting, but he chose not to. It's also important to note that if he had lied during the interview, he could have been brought up on department or criminal charges. Plus, he was laying his career on the line by discussing misconduct he claimed to witness. He also supplied documentation of his claims. And the interview took place prior to his controversial suspension, and months before he spoke to the media. In short, he had little to gain and a lot to lose by speaking with the investigators.

Once again, Schoolcraft had brought along his audio recorder, and recorded the meeting without the knowledge of the others in the room. During the meeting, the QAD officers make some interesting off-handed observations about the extent of crime statistic manipulation in the precincts.

After a long description of how he does investigations, one of the supervisors says, "You know, I've been doing this over eight years. I've seen a lot. The lengths people will go to try not to take a report, or not take a report for a seven major [crime]. So nothing surprises me anymore."

The supervisor notes such instances can be criminal [falsification of business records], but district attorneys typically "don't want to touch" cases of officers manipulating statistics. "They'll give it back to the department to handle it internally," he says.

More tomorrow.